The sidewalks of Oslo in winter

I wonder each year, once winter comes, how it is possible that the city of Oslo appears not to care too much about its inhabitants slipping and sliding on the ice that coats most of the sidewalks. I've written about this before, but this year the problem seems even more pronounced. We have had a few snowfalls followed by sub-freezing temperatures, and that's usually fine. The problem arises when the snow melts over a period of a few days of above-freezing temperatures. The snow turns to slush, and then to ice once the temperatures drop again. Apartment and house owners do throw down some gravel, but it's not enough. The sidewalks and even the side roads are slippery as hell. I think the lack of consideration for others is appalling. 

Our co-op maintenance fees are increasing considerably as of January. My question is what are we getting for this increase. Will the board approve more gravel and salt for the sidewalks? Will they hire a person or firm to shovel snow on a continual basis? Will they care about the elderly that live here? Do they care about them at present? It doesn't seem like it. They do hire a plow to clear the road in the inner courtyard so that emergency vehicles can navigate them. But if you want to leave your apartment to walk the short distance to the garbage house, you risk slipping and falling and breaking a bone or two. It's rather pathetic, especially as we approach 2023. Interestingly, the few co-op apartment dwellers who have complained on our co-op's Facebook page are young people, not elderly. The latter have probably given up in frustration; they know that they are not and never will be a priority in this city.

The city cares mostly about keeping the bicycle lanes free of snow; they plow them and scatter salt so that the snow melts and stays melted. All this for the miniscule percentage of city dwellers that actually bikes during the winter. The city should be plowing and salting the sidewalks as well. But of course we live in a city that prioritizes bicyclists, not pedestrians. There are far more of the latter, so it makes no sense. But this is the philosophy that the Green Party politicians are obsessed with; everyone should bike, year-round. It doesn't matter that it's bitter cold; you should just suck it up. If you need studded tires for your bicycle, their purchase is subsidized by the city (Støtte til sykkelpiggdekk (klimatilskudd.no). Like so many others, I'm weary of the Green Party pushing their agenda down our throats. Biking in the wintertime is a high-risk sport. I've been witness to near-fatal accidents with bicyclists in wintertime; one woman actually fell off her bike (hit a slippery patch) and nearly ended up under the wheels of a city bus that was right on her tail. A near miss; she was just lucky. 

It's truly disappointing to realize that a city does not care very much about its inhabitants. It's not as though winter is a short season here in Norway. Even though Oslo does have mild winters at times, when it snows, the problem of snow and ice removal arises. The city doesn't seem to care too much that snow and ice removal from sidewalks is a problem. I guess they think it's ok that there are often record numbers of people who end up in the emergency room with broken bones. And those people are mostly children, young people and middle-aged folks. Elderly people don't dare to leave their homes very often. If they did the numbers would be even higher. I have to say that I just don't get it. 

Bicycle bullies

• There are too many of them in this city, and most of them are men in their thirties and forties.
• They travel as fast as cars do in the middle of the city, but ignore traffic lights and do just as they please. They are traffic hazards. You never know where you have them.
• They are supposed to get off their bikes and walk them across the pedestrian crosswalks; this almost never happens.
• They travel too fast on footpaths that are designed for both pedestrians and cyclists. They act annoyed when you don’t move out of their way fast enough.
• That there haven’t been more serious accidents in Oslo involving them and pedestrians surprises me.
• Apropos my last post about the baby hedgehog; I’m sure the majority of the bicycle bullies would just drive right over one in their path, crush it and move on. Perhaps that’s mean of me to say, but I don’t get the impression that these people care too much about anyone or anything except themselves, and about getting to where they’re going as fast as possible, obstacles be damned.
• The most stupid thing I’ve seen so far is those of them who are steering the bike with one hand and talking on a cell phone with the other. Honestly, what is so important that you need the dangerous distraction of a cell phone? Who do you think you’re impressing? And if it’s really a serious matter, pull over to the roadside, stop and take the call.
• They act as though they are competing in the Tour de France, and they dress accordingly.
• In Amsterdam--bicycle city deluxe--the bicyclists know how to behave in traffic and don’t all look as though they are Tour de France competitors. They dress in ordinary clothing and are far more relaxed. The same is true for another bicycle city—Copenhagen. Why does Oslo have to stand out in this way? It impresses no one.
• Isn’t it possible to bike anymore without having to ‘dress the part’ from head to toe?
• Isn’t it possible to enjoy being out in nature, to stop along the way and admire a lake or a flower, without having to speed your way through all that is beautiful around you?
• Get over yourselves. The rest of us are not impressed.

Biking, Bicycle Sundays and the Bikecentennial

We are experiencing an early autumn in Oslo this year, not that I am complaining, because the sun is shining more than it did the entire summer. So for some few hours a day, in the early afternoon, there is actually some sunshine and warmth. Today was a perfect day for a bicycle ride up along the Akerselva river, which is something I have done quite often in recent years. Biking up along the river from the beginning to the end (Oslo fjord to Maridalen reservoir) is a total distance of about five miles, so it’s not a long river. My trip today was about six miles round trip (from Ila to Kjelsås and back); for the most part fairly hilly on the way up, but an easy and enjoyable return downhill for those (like me) who end up being a bit tired afterwards.

I have biked all my life, it seems. There is something about getting on a bike that spells freedom for me. I learned like most other children to ride a two-wheeler when I was around eight years old, and after that I was sold. I can remember biking around Tarrytown as a teenager, exploring back streets, the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, Philipse Manor and Sleepy Hollow Manor, and maybe once or twice I got as far as Rockwood State Park, slightly north of Tarrytown on route 9. I didn’t go much further north than that. Sometimes I had my friends with me, but most of the time I was alone. When Westchester county officials decided in 1975 or 1976 to close off the Bronx River Parkway to cars on Sundays during the summer and early fall, I was thrilled. Bicycle Sundays still exist as I discovered when I googled them (http://www3.westchestergov.com/news/2674). The course ran from the Westchester County Center in White Plains south to Scarsdale Road in Yonkers, which was a round-trip of about 13 miles. I would first bike from Tarrytown to White Plains and then bike the entire round-trip course, together with a lot of other bike enthusiasts. There was no question of biking fast—you were limited by how fast the others biked. But sometimes I could break away from the pack. My brother joined me on some Sundays and that was always nice. He became quite a good biker and went on to participate in triathlons in his early twenties. In early 1976, the year of the bicentennial of the USA, I and my friend Loraine from college decided to try and join one of the cross-country trips that was offered by BikeCentennial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikecentennial), now called TransAmerica Bicycle Trail (http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes/transamerica.cfm). She left it up to me to do the planning. I do remember getting the brochure/maps in the mail and poring over them, trying to decide what route would be best for us, and settling on a week-long trip through Virginia; I don’t remember the exact route, but the present routes are probably the original routes. We both bought fairly expensive bikes for that time, in April 1976, in order to be able to train for this trip. Unfortunately, by the time we registered for it, it was booked solid and we missed out on that opportunity. Many of the other trips were not on the East coast and we were limited in what we could choose, since the Virginia trip was the one trip that fit our time schedule; we had the month of August free and after that we had to return to college. So we didn’t manage the Bikecentennial trip, but I at least kept on biking and am still doing so today. I still flirt with the notion of attempting another such trip—shorter distance and shorter time, in the USA or in Norway. But it has not come to pass and I must admit that I have not actively sought it out. After I left college and moved to the Bronx, my biking days became more limited because I did not feel comfortable biking in the Bronx. When I later moved to New Jersey in the mid-1980s, I bought a new bike at the urging of my brother who by that time was a triathlon biker. My new bike was a racing bike; to go with my new bike, I needed biking shoes (that attached to the pedals) and biking gear. Biking in America at that time was really taking off (this was around 1986-87), thanks to Greg LeMond and his 1986 win in the Tour de France. Bikers needed trendy gear. However, I never really felt comfortable with any of it, and I hated that my shoes were attached to the pedals when I biked. It felt claustrophobic. So if I biked, it was in the old way, comfortable shoes—unattached to the pedals, regular pants, no helmet—as non-aerodynamic as possible. I have relented somewhat over the years—I own bicycle pants with padding that reminds me of a big diaper, and a seat cover with padding, and bicycle gloves to grip the handlebars better. But this is about comfort and nothing else—if seats were comfortable like in the old days I wouldn’t have bought a seat cover or bicycle pants. I also own a helmet that I never use; I don’t like the feeling of having it on my head and it seems to interfere with my hearing—too much swooshing in my ears. I’ve fallen off a bike twice in my life; the first time as a child and a passenger on my friend’s bike--I smashed my front tooth, and the second time as an adult—I ended up with skinned knees that were painful and took weeks to heal. But small injuries have never deterred me. After I moved to Norway in 1989, I didn’t bike regularly for a number of years, I’m not even sure why, not until I bought a bike again in 1997 and used it to bike to and from work. But after I injured my back in 2001, I didn’t get on a bike again until 2009. I was afraid of injuring my back and for some reason I associated biking with back problems. This fear turned out to be unfounded. So now I am biking again, not as much as I’d like, but much more often than I thought I’d manage.

Although I enjoy walking and hiking in the forests and our occasional trips to the mountains, I think I enjoy biking best. It is something I can always do, anywhere. I prefer it to jogging, which I find somewhat monotonous, although I do jog at times. I have biked to work on occasion; that is real training, again mostly uphill all the way. Suffice it to say that my energy level is not at its peak in the morning, so I do struggle a bit. I am an early afternoon biker from the standpoint of being able to tackle all of the physical challenges involved. I think what I have always liked about biking is the freedom, the fact that you get to different places faster than you would if you walked, and that you are outdoors in nature. The latter is most important to me these days. I cannot wait to get outdoors now—to breathe fresh air, to be out in the sunshine, to be a part of the nature around me. In such respect, I don’t really miss my health club training; although I am still a member, I am rarely there, because it means going indoors and stepping onto machines—treadmills, cross-country machines—that take me nowhere. The only way I survive the boredom of training is to have my iPod with me. That saves me. I train indoors during the winter—I don’t enjoy biking in the ice and snow, although I have one friend who does and she says it’s fine as long as you have the right tires. Perhaps I will get to that point one of these days, if only to find my way outdoors again during the long winters.